AuthorTopic: Would Appreciate Some Help (Read 1489 times)

Well my situation is that I graduated over a year ago from an undergrad program and am currently working in finances with one of the banks. While I was in school I decided I would be "smart" and work to much in order to avoid loans which I succeeded in doing. I also had family financial responsibilities to take care of which I won't really go into detail about.

The unfortunate part was that my marks did not turn out very well. They were actually quite poor approximately high 60's low 70's with my final year being the worst. While working with the bank I have come into much contact with lawyers and what has always been a pleasant idea is now 100 percent what I want to do.

I took my L-sat and scored a 162, which I believe is decent. now what I am asking is what to do from here. Do I go back to University and raise my marks? Do some universities take just your last year or two? This would allow me to go back for a minimal amount of time to raise my marks. Also I would prefer to go back part-time while I work but if this would be detrimental to my getting accepted is a non-issue.

I would appreciate whatever feedback people can give me. I am ready to now take the loans and get the marks and will do whatever it takes to get in.

The bad news is that a lot of the schools won't consider any courses done after your first undergrad degree was completed. Those that do: Alberta, Manitoba, UNB, Dal. Alberta and Dal take the last 2 years, so since it sounds like your last year was particularly rough, you might be looking at 2 full years of coursework to make yourself competitive, though a year of straight As might do depending on how bad that last year was.

If I were you, I might consider Manitoba and UNB, as they drop a number of your worst grades. Off the top of my head, I think Manitoba will drop your worst 30 credits, and UNB your worst 25%. If your GPA on Manitoba's scale after drops hits 3.6 (they're on a wonky 4.5 scale, so you should look it up), you can even go ahead and apply this year. Similarly for UNB, if you're able to hit around the mid-3s (on a 4.3 scale) with the drops.

Saskatchewan will take the best two years of your first undergrad degree, so that might work well for you too. Again, with a 162 I'd say it's worth applying if your best two years is around 3.4 or 3.5.

And since you're working now, there's always Calgary and Windsor, especially if you had extenuating circumstances that explain your low GPA and you can get some decent letters together.

It's definitely worth looking at any options you might have right now. Going back to school won't give you a whole lot more options (probably just Alberta and Dal) and obviously the opportunity cost is pretty high. Good luck!

I'm not up enough on the new admission policy (the one that's supposed to be adopted for next year's cycle, and thus the one that would apply to the OP if he went back for upgrading) to know. I thought the language was unclear - that it seems possible that they're just going to use first-undergrad UGPA. I think grad school etc. is going to be a soft, but as I say I don't know about post-degree upgrading.

Still, I probably should've flagged Oz too. Good point.

And I guess in the interest of completeness, the schools with a holistic element to their admissions will consider upgrading, though it's hard to know to what extent.